Sevenborn
by DarkBeta
Summary: AU. Noble-Ezra summons slave-Chris to his room for an evening of . . . exchanging haiku? Only on the internet could a mind of my perversity find a home.
1. Dangerous Gifts

_(Warning: large quantities of bad poetry ahead! This story began because i read a book about Heian Japan, "The World of the Shining Prince" by Ivan Morris, and thought, "Hey, Ezra would like it there!" However this world is not that one, so please don't scold me for motifs that are neither Heian nor Japanese. You can, of course, scold me for borrowing the Magnificent Seven, since i know perfectly well they are not mine, nor were not, nor will be.)_

SevenBorn I, by DarkBeta

The black haired servants were locals, as innocent of rebellion as they were of shoes. They gave him tea -- chilled and sugared to disguise the age of the leaf -- and vanished from sight (though not, unfortunately, from hearing). Esara was left to contemplate a travesty of a garden.

Boulders chipped into models of the Seven Mountains had whitewash poured over them for snow. The sand was raked in geometric figures. Artificial branches with pea-green leaves hung over the adobe wall. He managed not to shudder, and pasted on a contemplative smile.

Too soon for courtesy (and far too late for aesthetics) the servants came to lead him to the banquet hall. Crude murals showed pine forests, fields of cattle and horses, and a dragon like a horned toad plunging through the sky above the governor's seat. Esara bowed humbly -- a little too humbly.

"Seeking the favor of jan Cinrein, Governor of the Red Riverlands, comes the traveler Sutandisu Esara, a pilgrim to the twenty-eight Western shrines," the doorman announced, stumbling a little over the Highborn name.

"Be welcome, pilgrim."

Esara raised his head, observing the room even as he spouted the usual courtesies in the drawling accent of the Eightfold City. The first part of Teravisu's request -- discovering the regional governor's intentions -- was simple. Did Cinrein think he hid his ambition?

His coat was regulation indigo cotton, but an edge of gold silk lining showed when he gestured. The back of his bench curled into something close to a throne, and his manners were copied from a traveling player's court tragedy.

"Already the expense of your time puts this inelegant one in your debt, janGovernor. One can only plead for your indulgence of a traveler who has set the world aside. 'Cider will not stop this thirst . . . .'"

'Cider will not stop this thirst / so look for a hidden spring.' The verse Esara referred to a desire for enlightenment, but Cinrein clapped his hands sharply.

"Wine! Applewine for my guest!"

In the palaces of the Eightfold City the servants wore silk slippers so they would not be heard. Here their feet pounded like hail on the veranda outside the sliding doors.

The wine that came had been triply distilled, to alcohol with the smallest taint of apple scent. The decanters, cups and platter were a matched set, with a monotonous perfection of glaze and pattern. Esara really couldn't decide which demonstrated a greater lack of taste. Was the cash Teravisu offered really worth enduring this barbarian?

He praised the vintage anyhow, of course, along with the porcelain, the service, and Cinrein's utter condescension to a poverty-stricken traveler. As some slight return he offered a gilt breastplate set with turquoise, in the form of the firebird Enterprise carrying a Celestial mandate as an unfurling scroll. It was designed to please an over-ambitious outsider, and Esara recognized the greed in Cinrein's eyes.

He also recognized calculation. A Highborn's host-gift was supposed to match the guest-gift in kind or implication. How much would a greedy man sacrifice in the attempt to look courtly?

Cinrein muttered to a servant. Feet thudded back and forth on the veranda again, through several more rounds of applewine and ridiculous compliments. The rude menial returned. The governor made another expansive, artificial gesture.

"Sam Sutandisu Esara, accept an impoverished token of my regard."

Use of the honorific 'sam' meant Cinrein believed the mysterious stranger was Highborn -- and thus an imperial agent. For what other reason would Highborn travel so far from the throne city?

Esara bowed, his stance less humble than his words. The caper was proceeding well. He wouldn't turn down a flutegirl, or a few bales of the pounded fibre cloth the locals wove. His employer made no claim to any unconsidered trifles that might fall Esara's way in this venture.

The attendants pulled aside a screen between the dining hall and its veranda. Collared and bound, the beastborn made a pitiful huddle. Governor Cinrein had enough sense of presentation that they were washed and kilted, and given water at least. Esara doubted they'd been fed.

That Cinrein thought he could be considered worthy to give this gift was arrogance on the edge of madness. In the Eightfold City eight beastborn (seven, if one discounted the cub) would be an imperial gift. Of course those would be trained purebreds, not half of them mongrel and the other half feral.

Here on the borders the gift was valueless . . . almost. What use were beastborn without Highborn? Only Highborn could break beastborn to their use. Esara gulped at his applewine, gaining a few seconds to plan a response.

"Sam Cinrein, I am speechless, my breath lost in the radiant glory of your generosity, my words a frail and insubstantial smoke vanished in the gale of my overwhelming debt . . . ."

The gift was a test, of course. Esara had to accept it. No Highborn would pass by such a trove, and the Eightfold City had no concern for other than Highborn. A commoner could vanish with no questions asked.

It was a bribe as well. A man so unpopular at court that he was sent to the wilderness would find such a reward . . . persuasive.

Finally, even if the Highborn wouldn't stay bought, the beastborn were a distraction. Mindbreaking so many should take a moon or more. By then a caravan of the luxuries skimmed from Cinrein's tax revenues would be en route to his home province -- a nice profit for his years in exile.

The bribe put Esara on a tight schedule. A very tight one, if he hoped for any profit above his promised wage.

He showed no hurry. Guards took the beastborn away. The banquet continued. Tiny pale cups of applewine floated about the table, easy enough to spill out or share with the clumsy but enthusiastic flute-girls.

"These heifers are the best this wilderness can offer," Cinrein confessed, "but you and I have seen true grace, Sam Esara. Do you long as I do for the dances of the Imperial Flower Troop, or the hosts at Uran? Only the most beautiful youths of the noblest clans . . . but perhaps I speak of scripture to a monk?"

It was a trite reference. 'Unrolling these painted scrolls / one quotes scripture to a monk.' Alcohol lent Cinrein no gift of conversation. Esara distracted him with toasts to every notable of the Eightfold City, until lewd compliments trailed into incoherence. Esara had been careful to spread small gifts among the servants. For his reward they carried him back to his rooms once he'd slumped in feigned drunkeness.

At the door curtain Esara pretended to wake.

"Bring the beastborn here," he commanded. "The pale male, the angry one. And bring more wine!"

No-one else, so far from the Eightfold City, would identify a breeding pair of Larabi fighters with a cub, a grizzled Sankesu giant or a long-legged Chakusan courser. Two of the males and one female looked crossbred, but they were not unpleasing. The male Larabi was pack leader, of course. Larabis were bred for aggression.

He could do this. He'd sold sand in the West and rock in the East, as the saying went. Even if beastborn could smell a lie, he'd win their support.

Bright silk pillows and covers decked the sleeping platform. When the guards called for entry Esara was sprawled on the pillows, looking (and smelling) very drunk. The low table held another jug of applewine, with small cakes and sliced fruit.

Cinrein's guards dragged the beastborn past the door curtain, and choked and kicked him into position on the floor. He had not struggled. Esara could only assume they were showing off.

"Damage my property, and I'll have its value from you."

The look of Highborn contempt sent them backing out of the room, apologizing. Esara hoped that meant the other beastborn might receive gentler treatment. He stood up to circle around his new possession.

A breed tattoo on the beastborn's shoulder confirmed he was Larabi. He had the pale skin (livid with sunburn now), hair so pale it was almost white, glacial eyes, and the narrow build of a ring-fighter. In the late stages of withdrawal, with wrists and ankles tied to a ring on the floor, he should have seemed helpless.

Instead, like a pinon tiger in a cage, he was an incarnation of murder. He glared at Esara, looked once at the applewine, and then found the wall fascinating.

He lived up to the Larabi reputation for stubborn endurance. His uncollared throat was tanned as dark as his face. Mature beastborn were supposed to die within a few moons of losing their breaker. This one was gaunt beneath his scars -- by now every bite he swallowed had to be an effort of will -- but he was aware and apparently sane.

Like most luxuries from the Eightfold City, the cream Esara used to keep his skin supple was safe for beastborn too. He went to get it. Sunburn would be torture, to inhumanly sensitive skin. If he wanted the beastborn's attention, he had to eliminate distractions.

The beastborn didn't twist to watch. He couldn't escape. He chose not to throw himself against the ropes. Only the taut muscles of his back and shoulders showed distrust of the man behind him.

Even a feral Larabi couldn't wander alone this far from the Eightfold City. Some Highborn had brought the beastborn out where only exiles came. Esara couldn't imagine abandoning property so valuable.

"Highborn don't thrive in solitude, jan-beastborn. Did yours take the quickest way home?"

The quote was well known. Even a beastborn should recognize it. 'Mud, thieves, and shut gates / or the narrow shining road / the quickest way home.' Many Highborn chose death over exile from the Eightfold City and their own kind.

"Don't spout what you don't hold!" the beastborn snarled.

'Only the scent left / "Don't spout what you don't hold", said / the cup to the flask.' He spoke understandably, more than some beastborn managed. That was useful. Esara salved the areas the beastborn would find difficult to reach and wiped his hands on a small towel. The knot securing the leather cuffs was easy enough to undo. He turned back to the dais.

The world flipped over. He lay on the tile floor. At his throat was the dinner blade from his belt. The beastborn had him pinned.

"This drumming stream . . . ?" the beastborn said.

Out in the provinces, Esara missed hearing the allusive, indirect courtly speech. He hadn't expected it from so unlikely a source. 'Life weighs so little / like a shard of ice crosswise / on the drumming stream.' Thawing ice was a human life in the stream of time.

Until now he had not interpreted the poem as a threat of mortal injury. Rumor said the instinctive need in an unbroken beastborn meant he couldn't harm a Highborn, but that didn't shield Esara. This beastborn seemed quite able to cut his throat.

Esara should have been afraid. Without high stakes though, what interest was there in a game?

"Even the timbers . . . ." he quoted back.

The timbers referred to a Highborn's funeral pyre. 'Even the timbers / groan for the loss of that smoke / taken by the wind.' The heaviness of grief contrasted with intangible life.

The meaning was darker here. The death of a Highborn meant his beastborn died too. Custom sent them to his pyre. In the Eightfold City they were drugged or strangled beforehand, to avoid impropriety at a solemn rite. Cinrein was not likely to observe such niceties.

The beastborn's grip didn't slacken. His pack's best chance of escape lay in cooperation, but Esara couldn't say so. The other beastborn had to be listening, let alone what spies the governor set. Only the allusive quotes of courtly speech let him hint at accommodation.

". . .because the rain falls."

'Only because the rain falls / we are caught here together.' Like the lovers in the poem, he and the beastborn didn't have to put up with each other for long.

To break the flask of scent in his shirt cuff would leave the beastborn gasping. The blade beside it was more permanent. Using either meant the end of this night's game, even if he set aside the chance the beastborn would cut first.

The beastborn's retreat was as abrupt as his attack. Esara took his time in standing and straightening his robes. He turned around. The Larabi's glare was unamused.

"The plum tree expected spring," he said.

'Without promises / the plum tree expected spring / ice on flowered twigs.' Esara said nothing, only held a hand out for the return of his knife.

It hit his left shoulder -- hilt first, but hard enough to wake the devil sleeping there. He caught it with his right hand as it dropped. The blow wasn't chance. The beastborn read his stance to know his weaknesses.

Esara slid the knife back into its sheath. He turned his back on the beastborn again, and returned to the platform.

"What do you want?" the Larabi asked.

"Faithful servants," he said. "Cherry boughs are not enough."

'One faithful servant / lights the hearth and draws water / an eightfold treasure' referred to the service that allowed a recluse to concentrate on enlightenment. 'Greedy for treasure / cherry boughs are not enough / the sound of your flute' was the plaint of a woman waiting for her lover. Taken together though, Esara hoped the beastborn would understand his goal.

"A loyal soldier serves . . . ."

That was clear enough. 'Even a rebel / like a loyal soldier serves / with his death the whole.' The Larabi knelt, his arms behind his back as if they were still bound, and his head fallen back to show the throat.

The last, least use of a stubbornly unbroken beastborn was an example to the rest. Since the beastborn could not kill -- not if he wished his pack to survive -- he sought another escape. The insult was remarkably painful.

". . . like moonlight and soft breeze."

'Guests who come at night / like moonlight and a soft breeze / aren't asked their names'

Like much of court speech the words implied their opposite.

"Dust on the road," the beastborn answered.

'Dry dust on the road / rises to choke boasting men / that will be my name.'

Several small cups clustered about the applewine jug. The servants had expected flutegirls to accompany him back. Esara poured a cup for himself and set another at the edge of the tray. A gentle wave indicated where his attendant might be expected to kneel.

The Larabi settled himself to the left of the dais as a favored beastborn would -- as this one doubtless had, some time in the past. He gulped the applewine as if it was medicinal, and slapped the cup down with a challenging look. Obligingly Esara drank his own and poured the cups full again. It won him some payment.

"Kris. Kris the Larabi."

The beastborn drank again. Like most Larabi he'd been named for a weapon, a twisty blade. Again like most, he was proud of his derivation.

"Jan Kurisu," Esara said, giving it the Highborn pronounciation.

He poured for the Larabi as he poured for himself, ignoring the beastborn's saturnine smile. Alcohol was one drug that affected beastborn less than humankind. A Highborn should be unconscious long before the Larabi so much as swayed. That had to be Kris's plan.

Hunger, thirst, and random beatings, with the end-stages of Highborn-withdrawal, might tilt the balance more than Kris expected. Esara went on pouring the paired drinks. If his were imbibed with more care, or if his cup filled again before it was emptied, the beastborn didn't comment. Still, Esara began to think he'd have to call for more applewine.

"All day going from room to room / looking for something I lost," the beastborn whispered. "Sera!"

He swayed. Bewilderment turned to accusation. He glared at Esara. When he tried to stand, he couldn't untangle his feet. He slumped against the dais.

Esara put a hand on his head, gambling the beastman was too far gone to shake it off. Or bite it off. Cooperation would have eased the way, but Esara could make use of its lack as well.

"Sleep, janKurisu. Dream of your Highborn. Dream that you're happy."

Kris slipped to the floor. Esara guided the dead weight of his skull away from any hard surface. His hand stayed in place longer than it was needed.

He did not want to admire the beastborn. They were going to be his camouflage and tools. Their virtues were a matter of breeding not choice -- rather like his lack thereof -- and only a fool would envy anything in them.

Having rid himself of some applewine in the waste-closet, Esara sorted through his clothing for the collars every Highborn carried. He couldn't lie to beastborn, but Kris the Larabi was going to lie for him.

He sacrificed a couple of pillows to wedge the Larabi on his side, mitigating the effects if an over-sensitive stomach rebelled. Even deft hands couldn't tie the collar on an unconscious man easily. More than once the Larabi seemed about to wake. Esara whispered him calm, but it was all pretense. He couldn't supply what the beastborn needed.

All he could do was take them from Cinrein's hold. In the night and the cold, the fate every beastborn was born to still waited. Standing began to seem an arduous project.

With a hand still splayed on the beastborn's chest, Esara tried to remember why he had to move.


	2. Tesselation

Sevenborn, Part 2: Tiles, by DarkBeta

Deep breaths drove back the haze. Esara got to his feet as carefully as if he stood by a cliff edge. Knowing he was drunk made him excessively precise. He concentrated on developing a stagger.

"Want another bottle. Want another tail. Dogbeast blissed out on me," he hiccuped to the door servants. "Get the cub."

"At once, samSutandisu."

The servant returned no more than a few choruses later, proof that the beastborn were close enough to hear his words. Behind him a guard dragged the second beastborn.

The cub was bound like the adult. The ropes were too wide for his narrow wrists. Esara could have slid free in seconds, and had when he was not much older than the boy.

"I'll remember this service," he told the attendant and the guard, noting their faces as he tipped them.

He tied the door-curtain behind them. The boy was red-eyed and hiccuping, with snot on his face and smears where he'd tried to wipe his nose against his shoulders. He stared as if Esara was a demon's foot falling to crush him. Even if Esara found male cubs to his taste, this would have revolted him.

"Don't cry for your dam. The guards may be unkind if she troubles them."

Perhaps his tone was too harsh. The cub's eyes widened. He made an heroic attempt at silence, by holding his breath. Watching to see if he'd turn blue was probably poor entertainment.

"You see a basin of water in the corner. Are you old enough to wash your own face and hands, or do you still need your mother's tongue?"

"I'm a big boy. I can wash myself."

"Unproven, and unlikely. But let us judge if your action supports your word."

Esara released the ropes while the boy was too indignant to wail at his approach, and turned him toward the water basin. At the least the cub could drink there.

A handful of game tiles from his travel-sized kit clicked in sequence. Lady of Fountains, King of Staves, Counselor of Flowers, Ten of Mirrors . . . . Idly he kept the next tile rolling across his knuckles.

The boy might have gone on cowering in the corner, but sleight of hand brought him edging closer. Esara gave no sign of noticing.

For a child of that age he'd washed well enough. His face was still smudged, and nothing could pale the red rims of his eyes. It seemed his senses weren't yet active. Given the opportunity, beastborn were meticulous iin their personal care. Seeing grains of earth like boulders probably explained it.

Certainly the etched patterns of the tiles should have been plain from a distance. Esara set down the next-to-last of the tiles, and looked ruefully at his empty hands.

"Nine of Staves is a pilgrim, always wandering off. Now where has he gone?"

The cub looked around the room. Esara reached across his shoulder, and held up the final tile as the cub pulled back.

"Hiding behind your ear. An ill-behaved token."

The tile clicked down in the space left for it. The cub edged about the sleeping dais for a better look, and nearly stumbled over the unconscious beastborn.

"Sen Kris? Kris?" The cub looked up at Esara. "Is he dead?"

"He's appreciating the distinction between frost-cured applewine from the Eightfold City, and your local brew."

"What did you do to him? He looks happy!"

"Gas," Esara said. "Are all of your company as speechless as Kurisu?"

He picked up a stack of tiles, bounced them into the air, and extracted one as they fell back into their tower. The Empty Mirror. The cub watched with his mouth open.

"Kris can talk. Though mostly he just says to stop jabbering."

Another bounce, and Esara set down the Open Hand.

"And the recipient of these pleasantries?"

"Huh?"

The Naked Bough.

"Whom does he address most frequently in this fashion?"

The Dry Cup.

"Jeidi, of course. And Baku when he talks about coverings. Not me, except if I chatter. But Hosaiya tells stories, and Natan scolds, and Mama wants to plan where to go . . . . I don't think he yells at Vin or Inesu much."

Esara waved him to a pillow near the sleeping beastborn, beside the tray of small snacks.

"These sweets are stale and the fruit no longer fresh. Dispose of them for me. Jeidi . . . he's the tall one with hair on his face, right?"

That was worthy of a giggle. The cub sprayed crumbs, and swallowed hastily.

"That's Baku! Jeidi's shorter. Natan's tall and brown."

At that age, beastborn senses were vague and deniable. Cubs might show a certain wariness and need for order, no more than that. This cub was so open, so trusting of a stranger, that he scarcely seemed a beastborn at all.

Beastborn left changelings. Everyone knew it. Moved by some unconscious instinct, a beastborn dam put her cub in place of a human baby it resembled. If a commonborn child the same age as this cub showed beastborn senses, well, it had never been beastborn at all and the kennels would take it for training.

He had made some portion of his fifth and sixth years miserable by wondering if he could be a changeling, and that was why his mother . . . . Never mind.

Humans didn't leave changelings. The beastborn cub which failed to show beastborn senses was defective, and culled.

"'n Hosaiya's really, really old. Older than song. He's been, been everywhere."

If he'd needed much more information, water and food and the relaxation of fear had been, perhaps, ill-advised. The boy began to yawn more than he spoke. Esara finished his walls, up to Lady Sun and Lord Moon, and set the tiles back in their case. He separated himself from the boy's grubby hand.

"'An eager student prostrate . . . .'"

The boy blinked at him, listing sideways on the pillow. He'd given Esara a key to the pack. The one called Jeidi would tell him how to move the rest. Once the boy's eyes slid shut again, Esara went to the entry curtain.

"Pardon, sam, but you want another one?" the door servant asked,

He and the guard gaped past Esara at the boy lying senseless by the Larabi. They seemed torn between awe and revulsion.

"I believe I'd like one a bit . . . sturdier. The youngster with the dark hair? Or would you care to join my party . . . ?"

Probably the commonborn had never met an Highborn before, but rumor carried its own power. The man backed against the other wall of the corridor.

"We'll bring him, sam. At once. Right away!"

He and the guard went together to fetch the third beastborn. Esara suspected that was against Cinrein's orders, but he didn't take much advantage of the lapse. When they got back he was lounging where he'd been when they left.

They more or less tossed the new beastborn through the doorway and then pulled the curtain, as if feeding a kid to a pinon tiger. Only his hands were tied. Admittedly the half-grown beastborn was less threatening than most . . . but surely not as harmless as the cub?

"Where's Biri? Oh, he fell asleep. See, I knew he'd be all right!" He lurched to his feet, moving closer to the boy. "Baku said to tell you, only a fool rides an unbroke yearling when he's got a bluegrass stallion bridled. You can't go riding at night though, right? Can a kylin see in the dark? You rode in on a kylin, didn't you? The servants said so. Is it really red? I saw an old one once at the harvest races, but it was cloud-color."

A coal in the fire flared, unwrapping the Larabi from a coat of shadows. Jeidi stopped with his mouth open.

"How'd you get Kris to sleep? He never looks like that! What'd you do? Can't be poppy, 'cause of what happened when Natan tried some when he was sewing on Kris. He doesn't have a blade, does he? That was scary!"

"'. . . the wine of fallen apples,'" Esara began.

"I saw a kylin, but I never saw a Highborn before. Mari says you get called something special. It's 'sam', right? Why's that? What's it mean? Did you really come all the way from the Eightfold City? I saw plays about it. Mom and me lived on the snowcoast, and she thought I oughta go there, but when she died I came West instead. I was gonna maybe raise horses in the outlands but those guys said they'd take me someplace good only out in the middle of the grass Hasu got a knife out and said he'd shut me up . . . ."

He didn't seem to hear Esara murmur, "I sympathize."

"The beastborn heard them. They came and rescued me. Um, the other beastborn, I mean." He hesitated, and leapt to a new topic. "What are you going to do? Baku said not to worry, but Mari cried, and she didn't even hit Baku when he put his arms around her."

"I admit to curiousity as to the hypotheses your companions offered."

"What?"

"'Should I listen like the beasts?'"

'Words are all lies so listen / like the beasts, for silence.' Jeidi eyed him uneasily.

"Um, I guess you've had a lot to drink."

Esara sighed. Clarity left so few avenues for evasion.

"What do the others expect from me?"

"Nobody tells me anything!"

Jeidi blinked, far more surprised than Esara by the gust of anger. Esara set out two of the small cups and filled them from his private flask.

"'The plans of winter / what does the oak know of them / broken to the core?' Perhaps you would enjoy a taste of Resurrection of the Peach? I believe it is not a common refreshment out here."

"What? Uh, sure. Wow!"

Jeidi had wisdom enough to take no larger a mouthful than Esara did. His eyes widened. For a moment he seemed incapable of either breath or speech.

"'The noisy stream is silent, a startled awakening.'"

"What? Wow! That's . . . wow!"

"They say only the beastborn can truly appreciate this wine. Do you taste the juniper notes, and the undertone of bacon?"

". . . yes?"

"How fortunate you are. In the kennels of the Eightfold City, no cub unable to describe the nuances of Resurrection would reach maturity." Esara sipped his applewine again and set it down. "Of course Biri here is far too young for mind-breaking. There's no reason to wonder why he goes uncollared."

Jeidi looked toward Kris, and the sprawled and snoring child.

"I told you they saved me, right? Hosaiya says beastborn were called sentinels once. They rescued lots of people."

"This Hosaiya, does he have other tales?"

"Hosaiya knows a lot! His mind-breaker was a journeying monk, so he's lived everywhere from the Highborn city to the sunlands. He lived on the snowcoast before I was even born! He said the winters weren't as cold back then."

"A common belief, I'm told."

"Him and Natan lived in an old shrine, making medicine for the villagers. Natan got so famous bandits took him, but the guy with a sword wound died anyway. It wasn't Natan's fault. Hosaiya said even singing old people couldn't of saved him."

Esara managed not to smile at the ignorant reference to the Ancestors of Song. They were superstition now, who had been religion in an age of greater belief. No acolytes tended their abandoned shrines, but the commonborn left offerings when they feared disease or wished for the birth of a son.

He couldn't be certain, but his instinct whispered that neither Jeidi nor the cub – the boy – were beastborn. They weren't under the same inevitable sentence. Jeidi couldn't know what risk he put himself in by the pretense, but he'd be safe once they were away from Cinrein's palace.

He seemed intelligent enough. He might become some village's candidate to the Eightfold City's examinations. It wouldn't be impossible for him to be named governor of a district, like Cinrein.

As for the child, if his history was forgotten, some commonborn village would adopt him happily. More hands were always needed in the fields. At least two lives could be teased out safely from the current tangle.

"The bandits were mad. They were going to kill Natan! Kris and Vin rescued him like Kris and Baku rescued me. And they never even saw each other before. Vin and Kris, I mean. So I think Hosaiya's right. Beastborn, I mean, sentinels . . . they're supposed to save people. Not just do what a Highborn says."

"Don't you listen to the priests, boy? Only those without attachments are free. 'The natural end / of cider is vinegar; / desire, bitterness.' You learn to speak soft, when you need what lies in another's hands. 'Count dry leaves before the wind.'"

'Count dry leaves before the wind / count all my empty wishes.'

Esara held a hand out, with a collar hanging from it. The young man recognized it, however ignorant he might have been about other nuances of beastborn existence.

"I wouldn't want to be different from them."

Meeting Esara's eyes, he took the collar and tied it on himself.

"Since you have put yourself under my command, my first order to you is, to be silent."

Jeidi opened his mout, to question or complain or argue, and Esara put a finger across it. Jeidi went briefly cross-eyed trying to follow his hand.

"You will be quiet. No matter what I do. 'In the winter they died / without complaint.'"

'In winter they died / without complaint, the same birds / that call so loudly.'

Jeidi's eyes went wide. He took a breath, and nodded.

"Good boy. Now sit."

Perhaps Esara was still drunk. Perhaps lack of sleep bemused him. Esara began to wonder if he was too pessimistic. His employer was riding to meet him, not too far away. There could be an arrangement made, a chance for the beastborn to gain a few more years of life and sanity. Surely Esara would be rewarded for unexpected treasure?

He took a mouthful of Cinrein's cider – he certainly wasn't wasting his peach spirits so – and spat it out again. Lurching for the door curtain he called for the servant.

"More food. More cider. More tail," Esara said, breathing spirits in his face. "Gimme the tall one. With hair. Y'know, on his mouf."

He licked his lips, and the servant shuddered.

"At once, sam. At once!"

Stories would be going out of how many beastborn the Highborn mindbreaked in a single night. And here two of the three weren't beastborn at all, and Esara himself . . . . Well, it was all too funny.

Esara was still laughing when the servants brought Baku to him. They didn't seem reassured by it. Neither, for that matter, was Baku.


	3. Collection

**Sevenborn, Chapter 3: Collection****, By DarkBeta**

This one was truly beastborn. In the room lit only by firelight and one lamp, his eyes went at once to the sleeping beastborn, and the child beside him, and Jeidi kneeling behind the dais. Esara saw a killing tension seep from his shoulders. The mongrel might not be as dangerous as a Larabi, but to underestimate him would be lethal.

Jeidi took a breath, forgetting silence already. He'd need better control than that to survive his masquerade. Esara looked back at him, and Jeidi slapped both hands over his mouth. Esara was hard put not to spoil his reproval by laughing.

The servants had not lingered to secure the beastborn, or even to put him on his knees. Baku fell to them himself. He'd squared his shoulders and widened his stance to show to best advantage.

"You don't need the boy. I can do for you anything you want from him, and better."

Esara felt a moment's rage at the insult in the graceless offer, and then cold calculation. Of course Baku saw how he'd misrepresented himself to the Governor. The beastborn offered what he imagined a pretender could use, to protect Jeidi. He wasn't the boy's sire, was he? Jeidi's story argued against it.

An Imperial agent, an Highborn from the Eightfold City, wouldn't let the insult pass. Esara rose with the studied grace of the Highborn. (The lessons in movement and manner and speech began before memory. His mother's voice corrected him joint by joint, as if he were a puppet with a thousand strings.)

He raised the beastborn's head with a hand under his chin. One thumb stroked its peculiar accouterment. What freakish line of breeding produced hair on the face?

"I wonder you offer so much. Rumor says, that whatever a beastborn's inclinations, they can be altered in breaking."

He was near enough now to mute him, if the beastborn said a word out of place. Baku's alarm showed he knew it. Esara risked letting him go. He walked around his prize as if to examine him. Baku turned his head. When Esara stopped behind him, Baku had to lean his head back to see.

His long throat was vulnerable. The mongrel knew nothing of court manners, but beastborn dominance had its own signals. This should be acknowledgement enough.

"Grey clouds, reflected in ponds," Esara said, to his own face doubled on the beastborn's eyes. "You serve best the way you are. Now stand."

'Sons are like fathers / as we see the high grey clouds / reflected in ponds'

The beastborn was absurdly tall. The role Esara played was not intimidated. He loosed the band holding Baku's wrists.

Really, the servants were taking little care to secure the ferals now. One would think Cinrein wanted him injured or dead. Highborn who so misjudged their beastborn as to be injured in breaking them, got little sympathy. Such an accident to an Imperial agent, reported to the Eightfold City, might not after all be investigated with rigor.

A tight schedule indeed. He hadn't expected such subtlety from Cinrein. Esara found himself grinning like a commoner.

He drew another collar from his sleeve. The beastborn snatched it from his hand, and fastened it with angry haste. Esara gave him the reward he wanted.

"I put the cubs in your care, nu Baku, until I have some use for them."

"Cub? I'm not . . . ."

"Cub!" Esara said, and Jeidi slapped his hands over his mouth again.

Esara sighed. He found himself echoing the beastborn, as Baku sighed too. The hairy beastborn grinned at that. Esara started to smile back.

Scurrilous rumor said, Highborn bred some part of their own charm and attraction in some lines of the beastborn. No House admitted as much, of course. Their kind might be born among the commonborn at times, and gratefully adopted by whatever House discovered them, but the get of Highborn and beastborn would be abomination.

The darker the rumor, the more Esara was inclined to believe it.

Baku took a step back toward the dais. He'd have tried to guard his pack mates with or without Esara's command. The trick now would be to give no unwanted orders.

"Speak to the newcomer, cub. Quietly!"

"Baku, we're all okay. Kris and Biri are asleep, that's all. Is Vin okay? Got to be easier without us, right? What's Natan say?"

"What kind of pup can't keep his mouth shut while the wolf's howling, eh? Can't believe I talked Kris into hauling you along. Look at you, still fuzzy as a first-day chick!"

Baku rubbed the boy's head – another dominance display – and squatted beside him. Esara had wondered briefly about Jeidi's blood, but not even a mongrel would address a lost Highborn so. This Jeidi was a wandering commoner after all.

He started for the door curtain again, somewhere between stagger and swagger. He hadn't gotten the cider he'd asked for. By now his feigned drunkeness should be simmering toward aggression.

"Kome Esara."

He knew the honorific, of course. He just didn't think he'd ever heard it used. Beastborn attendants didn't often speak where they would be heard by any but Highborn. Some couldn't speak at all. Esara looked back at Baku.

"The dam would please you."

What was that? A comment on Esara's preference? A challenge? His success rested on the goodwill of the beastborn, which they had to know as clearly as he did. (At least, those old enough to have some sense of the world, which excluded Jeidi and Biri.) If Baku exercised what little power a beastborn could expect in the arrangement, he also acknowledged the unspoken agreement.

If he'd been covering the dam, perhaps he simply wanted her at hand. And if the suggestion was a trap (it had to be a trap, his mother's voice said in him), Esara would find it and break the teeth of it!

"Where's my cider? Did you lazy sots drink it yourselves? I want my cider."

"Here, the tray is here, sama. We meant not to disturb, sam Sutandisu."

Esara reeled, catching himself on the servant's shoulder, and then pushed the man away. Cider jugs tottered and clinked.

"Pah, what stink! Commoner pig! I need a sweet to take the taste away."

"Cakes soaked in honey-water, and sugared beans. At once, sama!"

"And the female. Pale. Like the male. Twins. Do two."

He giggled. He was proud of that giggle. As an indicator of sheer drunken dissipation it couldn't be bettered. That others think themselves more sober (or more sane) could be very useful.

The servant gasped, and gulped, and finally repeated, "At once, sama."

Esara took the cider in with him, though he'd had too much already. He'd give it to the beastborn if they were restive, or Kris when he woke. That would be an interesting encounter. He hummed the measured beats of a hauling song under his breath.

Within a chorus he heard quick steps, a pace just short of running, and the servant's voice.

"Stop. Slow down. Wait!"

The beastborn woman shouldered past the door curtain and stopped. The curtain fell back in place. Outside it the servants skidded to a stop.

"Er? The female you wanted, sam Sutandisu? We, ah, brought her," one of them panted. "The sweets will be here? From the kitchen, soon?"

"I'll call when I want them," Esara told him.

Meanwhile the beastborn had dropped into a courtly obeisance smoother than Esara had ever managed. He should have had lessons from the beastborn instead of his mother.

Sitting up again, she said, "Broken the walls of my thought, broken the bars of my cage, at your word blind or sighted, from your hand silence or sound, the one called Mari claims your guidance."

It was the old traditional vow from beastborn to Highborn. Esara had never heard the words except in temple plays. She recited it as flatly as a dinner menu.

"My kennel name is Larabi Maul, out of Anlace by Dirk, purebred for ten generations. I'm trained as a scribe and I can recite the Analects, the Classics and the Histories. I'll please you. I'll breed strong cubs by any sire you name. Kome Esara, a weaned cub won't inconvenience you!"

Only on the last words did her voice crack. Like Baku, her gaze went past him to where the child lay. She didn't look at Esara, even as he crouched to release her wrists.

"The choice of ice or fire," he quoted grimly.

'Their wood hut burning / smoke and blizzard and the choice / of ice or fire'

She surprised him by answering.

"I remember frost and fear."

'Who is wise enough / to remember frost and fear / once the soft winds come?'

She snatched the collar from his hand as soon as he fumbled it out. As she tied it he saw her wrists were stained with blood. The bands on the floor were stained too.

Esara hadn't commanded it, but he found the tall beastborn beside him.

"Look what you did to yourself," Baku told the woman gently. "Guess you know how happy Natan's going to be with you. The water's good. Come over here and wash that blood off, before you scare the kid."

Like a compass needle her face kept its heading, as Baku led her around the dais.

"He's really . . . ?"

"Safe as a cactus wren. Got a full belly for the first time in days, and sleeping like a just man."

Not even Cinrein's spies would believe a breaking could go so quickly. Esara sat on the dais again, for lack of other plans. Of course a dam would fear separation from her cub, and worry when they were apart. That was normal, wasn't it? He could have asked for the female earlier, if he'd thought of it.

What had his words sounded like, from another room?

Returning, Mari pulled ahead of Baku. She knelt beside the sleeping child and leaned over him. Esara thought she'd reach for Biri, but her hands stayed in her lap. He couldn't be sure he saw the widened nostrils or the slightly parted lips of a beastborn scanning for scent, but he could not mistake her concentrated attention.

Jeidi whispered, "I miss my mother."

Since Esara could hear him, Mari certainly did. She didn't react.

"Me too," Baku said. "Makes me feel sick, smelling blood. We need Natan."

At that Mari raised her head.

"No. It should be Vin."

He had seen cons go on oiled tracks, and the marks run to be fleeced. Generally that meant he should expect the guards of an intransigent Highborn to arrive, followed by a mob of dissatisfied commonborn and the local thieves' guild enforcers. He'd never had marks jostle to put themselves in his hands quite as enthusiastically as the beastborn did.

Not that it was his guile that drew them. No, as soon as he had some weight of the pack in his hands, he had them all. Like a worm between two holds, flowing to join its greater part. Or wolf hunters who took an entire pack by caging its leader, and trapping or shooting the rest as they came to its cries.

The pillows were comfortable. With no more puzzles to solve, his attention flagged. Perhaps he'd shown enough prodigies for one night.

They were staring at him. Baku and Jeidi sat shoulder to shoulder. Mari had finally set a light hand on her boy's head. He couldn't see their eyes in the shadows behind the dais, but their faces were turned to him.

"Um, the room where they put us, it only has one little window," Jeidi said. "And it was really high up, and had a shutter tied across it."

It was a reasonable design for a cell, judging by others he'd seen. Esara blinked, trying to remember what he meant to do next. What they wanted him to do next. He had the nasty feeling his con had doubled back on itself. Did the beastborn bend themselves to his goals, or were they bending him to theirs?

Vin. Which of them was Vin? Esara found himself stumbling to the door again. As he slid the curtain open, the attendant jumped.

"The sweetmeats, sama! Fresh from the kitchen!"

Esara took the tray to keep the dozen small dishes from clattering together. He smiled, too tired to be anything but charming. The servant stood straighter.

"Well delivered. I want also one more of the Governor's gift. Ah . . . ." He hesitated, trying to remember how the boy had described them, along with whatever clues the others gave. ". . . the short scruffy one."

The servant's eyes dropped, in a survey obvious though involuntary. Were these really the best Cinrein could find or train?

"How do you do it? Ah, I mean . . . sama, forgive me."

The honey cakes were fresh from the jar. He'd always had a weakness for them. It was rude to eat before others, but a servant scarcely counted. He carried the tiny cake between two finger tips, quickly so it couldn't drip, and licked the syrup from his fingers in the brief moment they lay on his lips.

"With care," Esara said, backing around the curtain to keep the tray clear of it.

It was advice unlikely to fail, no matter how it was applied. The servant flushed and took a step closer, but he was too late to help with the curtain. A moment after it had swung back in place his steps headed down the corridor.

Baku was laughing. Esara supposed he could why, but who really cared what beastborn found funny? He set the tray on a stance, and settled back among the warm cushions.

"I've had enough. You finish the crumbs."

"When you eat, we should taste first. That's proper," Mari said.

Esara waved a hand in lazy assent. Highborn died of many ills, but seldom of poison, nor the upsets that took commonborn. He felt himself drifting toward sleep, but for that drugs were unneeded.

An eerie monotone, somewhere between a moan and a cry, snapped the curtains of sleep away. It was in the corridor, coming closer. His mind groped among ghosts and furies.

"Walk, blast you! The Highborn's waiting!"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Who cares? Let the Highborn deal with it. Get the curtain."

"Ah, sam Sutandisu, the beastborn . . . ."

"What you wanted," the guard said, and tossed the beastborn through.

Yes, perhaps the servants were the best Cinrein could manage, if this was their alternative. The beastborn landed hard on his side. Esara stood up, ready to curse the servants for their abuse of his property, when the beastborn raised his head.

The others were feral, perhaps. This one was wild. His eyes were wide, far too wide. He panted like a man taken from a drowning river. He looked around the room as he got to his knees, but his eyes didn't rest on anything within the walls.

The other beastborn were silent. Esara was not sure they even breathed. Even Jeidi only took one horrified gasp.

Esara had explored the balcony outside the room earlier, just enough to know no one was lurking there, nor could reach it easily. He walked across the room, neither turning his back on the newcomer, nor facing him in challenge. The wide doors were barred. Wordlessly he unbarred them know, and swung them out.

The beastborn went by him like a flung boulder. Esara was glad to have kept out of his way; he might have been tossed in passing over the rail. He wasn't entirely sure the beastborn wouldn't fling himself out, with his hands still bound, but Vin stopped with his shoulder against a roof pole and his head thrust out in the open air.

He turned as soon as Esara stepped onto the balcony. Esara stopped with his hands open and apart.

"Look out again. I'll release your hands."

They stood that way a long time in the cold air. He knew better than to try argument with someone so close to panic. Finally Vin turned back to the starlit sky.

Esara let the wristbands drop. He went in to the warm pillows. They weren't as warm anymore. He was going to regret those open doors, and the chill breath of the desert before dawn.

A thin ghost edged in eventually, following the walls and nosing into every niche and cupboard. Even the waste-closet, which was no good place for a beastborn. Finally he spiraled into the room. Esara heard him sniffing at Kris on the floor, at Biri, Baku, Jeidi and Mari. She laughed a little.

"No, don't worry. I'm fine. We all are."

Esara let his eyes drift closed again. When he opened them, the feral beastborn stood in front of him, a little too near. The odd pale eyes stared at him. Neither of them moved.

Finally Esara held a collar out, because he couldn't think of anything else to try. Vin kept staring while he tied it on.

As soon as his hands dropped, he backed into the shadows. There had been a scatter of sweets on the platter still. Now they were gone. Esara let his eyes close again.

Behind his back Baku said loudly, "I really wish Natan could take a look at your wrists."

"Right! Natan would make you feel better, Mari. And he'd want to look at Vin too."

Esara sighed.


	4. Alliance

**Sevenborn 4: Alliance ****, by DarkBeta**

The brownest of the beastborn stepped away from the guard's hold, and stalked past the door curtain as soon as it was pulled aside. Esara started to speak, to draw his attention. The curtain swung shut again.

"You won't let me help until I've said it, right? Give me the damn collar!" He snatched it from Esara's hand. "Not one minute longer. Not one minute longer than it takes!"

He walked on as if Esara no longer existed. He sat by Mari, and the two murmured together in tones which only another beastborn could turn into words.

"That's clear enough," Esara murmured. "'Who needs to open the scroll / sent here tied by a bramble?'"

It would be foolish to strike back at something less than human, foolish to mistake poor training for bad manners. He told himself that as he went back to the cushioned dais. The beastborn talk went on, too low for any word to be caught. The murmur was almost restful. Almost . . . .

"Leave the august Highborn asleep!" The speaker's tone robbed the description of respect. "He's tired, and he's drunk. Best thing for him, and us."

"But Hosaiya's all by himself now," Jeidi insisted. "It's not fair!"

"Now, maybe the old man likes having some privacy. Got to be tough on him, keeping up with youngsters all the time," Baku said.

After a moment's silence Mari gasped and Baku started to laugh. A chuckling counterpoint had to be the feral Vin, and even Natan snorted. Esara opened his eyes. The sky outside the balcony was still dark, so he hadn't dozed long.

"What'd he say? What'd he say? I always get left out of the joke."

"'Dreaming on the road'," Esara said, with more irritation in his tone than he'd meant to reveal.

'Dreaming on the road / that I lie in my own bed / my arms not empty'

"But you're not on the road. You're in a house. You must've been dreaming about a road," Jeidi pointed out.

"He's just talking in poetry," Baku told him. "Highborn types do it like some kind of game."

"Lovely pair," Esara said.

'Lovely pair, ice on willows / piling snow on a straw roof'

"Um, we are?"

"He says he hasn't got much patience left, and we're pushing it."

"Thank you for the translation. I would require Mari to instruct both of you in the classics, save I fear the task beyond her."

Esara stood up. If the beastborn held his sleep hostage, he'd have to win it back. He stumbled to the door, far less gracefully than his training required.

"Bring food. And the last beastborn, but I need sustenance as well."

"I should think so!" the servant said under his breath, before he declaimed, "At once, Sam Sutandisu!"

Several more footsteps escorted the palanquin bearer to Esara's room than had brought the rest. The guard had enlisted help. He was wrong to rate a Sankesu more dangerous than a Larabi, but the error was understandable. The beastborn seemed even wider and more solid than Esara remembered.

He did not kneel, after he came through the curtain. The servant had to lean around him.

"Your mid-meal, Sam Sutandisu."

The platter had been selected for sustenance; boiled barley with beef fat and cracklings, ground meat and corn boiled together and then fried, grilled skewers of beef, five different pickles (onions, radish, okra, young corn and sprouted beans), corn mush shaped around various fillings and wrapped in seaweed, and a pitcher each of soy and red pepper sauce.

He'd been on the frontier long enough to recognize the foods, but that didn't redeem them. Esara turned to put the platter down.

"They make bets now. Can you guess their matter?" the beastborn rumbled behind him.

Far too closely behind him. Esara had not expected a large man to move so silently.

"My hubris, I expect."

He did not turn around. There was no dignity in addressing the beastborn face to chest.

"Nursing dams in the kennel tell their cubs, that once humans used the song of Je-ne Tik-tek Nolla Ji to claim all the powers of beasts and gods."

"I'm unfamiliar with that deity."

"When they found they had ceased to be human and had no home in the World they were sorry. They sang the song again. And those that could be human again were, not much changed from before the song was sung, and they tended the World as humans always had. These were commonborn, farmers and merchants and servants. Fortune gave them no more than ten-dozen winters."

"I won't cavil with Fortune over that."

"And the few that could only be beasts were accounted as dead, for the World's song was strong, and they could not live without the song that made them."

He turned around after all. The Sankesu already had his hands held out. They were broad, hard hands. Esara felt for a moment like a child, as vulnerable to them as Biri would have been to his.

"Yet the gods said they might be guardians, to taste poisons and touch storms and hear the World's anger as the commonborn could not, so long as the beastborn found some part of the gods' song. Then might they have of Fortune as many as five-dozen winters."

If that was the story beastborn cubs learned, their expectations were unreasonable. Hosaiya himself was the oldest beastborn Esara had ever seen. Even setting aside the many who found no mindbreaker, few beastborn lived past forty. The Highborn had no reason to encourage it, when eager cubs arrived every year from the breeders.

"And those that were gods vowed to stir the World no more, and became song in the skies. Only a few loved the World still and bound themselves to human form. The winters of a commonborn with the winters of a beastborn Fortune gave them."

Small as the chance was for the other beastborn to find a home, for Hosaiya it was even smaller.

"These were Highborn, and the song was in their blood and breath and bile and sweat. Even commonborn might find a trace of it, and look and listen, desire and obey, without knowing why."

Did Esara even have a collar large enough for so wide a neck? He hadn't played so long to lose the pot in the last round. Once more he loosed the beastborn's wrists, and held a collar out.

"To beastborn though, the Highborn was a river, and drowning there the only hope of life," Hosaiya finished, and took it.

Esara bit down on a meaningless apology. He stalked back to the pillows.

"I," he told Baku, "am going to sleep."

The beastborn grinned at him, teeth very white under the hair on his face.

"All as you desire, Sam Esara," Mari said flatly, robbing the rote response of any meaning.

His risk was no greater now, than it had been when he loosed Kurisu. Esara would take the beastborn out from under Cinrein's hand. They needed him. To have any chance at his real target, he needed sleep.

If he woke up, it would prove he'd won the game.

-------

"Open your mouth, and I'll kill you."

Esara's life offered few scenes worthy of nostalgia. This was among the ones he least wished to revisit. The cold blade at his throat was probably his own belt knife, again. Kurisu sat across him, his weight pinning Esara's hands under the woven blanket.

This time the Larabi's face was clear, in cold light flooding in with the cold air from the balcony. Attendant dawn ran ahead of the sun by a chorus or two. Esara wondered if he'd live to see the sunrise.

He'd calculated the beastborn had more to gain by following him than harming him. Could they have gone through the entire masquerade, just to move from a barred, windowless cell to a room less guarded? Esara didn't consider the balcony a route for escape, especially by day, but perhaps the beastborn thought otherwise.

"They're asleep. Don't expect an interruption."

Esara took a breath. The blade pushed deeper, but not so deep as to stop breath altogether. Perfect obedience was seldom the path to advantage.

"Shall all our encounters follow the same pattern? How dull."

"Didn't I tell you not to talk? I dreamt she was alive. We were together. The boy was running around. Laughing. When I woke up I remembered. How they died. What I smelled." The beastborn swallowed. "You can see why I want you dead."

The collar Esara had fumbled into place was gone. He kept his eyes on the face so low over his. He wasn't dead yet. There would be a chance, an opening, a path to survival.

"What are you after here? Information? Power? Wealth? Ah." Kris grinned. "Now, what kind of spectacle would the Governor make of a thief?"

"The dream was yours, not mine. If it was unwanted, my life is poor recompense. Do you add your own to the account? Or theirs? 'So eager for pilgrimage . . . .'"

'Thirsting for three days / so eager for pilgrimage / the wells are stale'

The verse was about discontent, and robbing oneself of present possessions for novelty's sake. His mother had quoted it often. Surely the Larabi cared enough for his pack that he wouldn't risk their execution?

Kris put his hand over Esara's mouth and chin, tightening his grip when Esara tried to speak. He showed his teeth.

"'. . . so look for a hidden spring'"

It was the second line of the verse Esara quoted to Cinrein. 'Cider will not stop this thirst . . . .' The Larabi had listened to them from the beginning.

He licked the blade of the belt knife and dropped it on the blanket. Esara blinked, trying to control a bubble of nausea. The beastborn dropped, and Esara shouted against the muffling hand as he felt teeth at his throat.

Kris licked the rest of the blood from the cut he'd made. He sat up again. He picked up the discarded collar and fastened it around his own throat. And then he licked his lips.

More beastborn dominance displays. Indignation would win as little as useless struggle did. Esara kept his voice carefully light and idle.

"The dream wasn't unwanted though. You would have been glad to dream without waking. 'Snow, petals, fruit, or gold leaves'"

In the classics, 'Snow, petals, fruit or gold leaves / only what falls is lovely' were the two lines after, 'The desire to hold / to dreams that tumble away / even when fallen'. Esara trusted the Larabi to catch the allusion.

In spite of the cold air Esara pushed aside the blanket. He let the belt knife go with it. Certainly he had no intention of using it again. He sighed over the creases in his robe. Then, having shown he didn't hurry, he stood up. And he did not flinch when the collared Larabi leaned close to him again.

"Yesterday Cinrein moved a wagon into the gated courtyard by the garden," Kurisu breathed in his ear. "The wheels dug deep ruts. He has one beastborn. She's in the kitchens."

If some other beastborn in the room was awake, he or she might have been able to catch the words. Beyond the room's walls, even another beastborn would be deaf to it.

Esara smiled. Alliance could be so very profitable, after all.

_(No, beastborn aren't vampires. Just wanted to make that clear. Also, the haiku are so much better in their original Sino-Texican!)_


End file.
